


Snick Snack Paddywhack

by wutthequiznack (birbsandemidogs04)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-02
Updated: 2018-09-02
Packaged: 2019-07-05 23:06:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15873558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birbsandemidogs04/pseuds/wutthequiznack
Summary: What would have happened if Lance didn't get Bi-Boh-Bih right and they were all fed to the Snick?





	Snick Snack Paddywhack

I'm sorry.

\--

There it was. The last picture. The one that was going to save him and his teammates from being fed to whatever the quiznak the Snick was. And Lance couldn't freaking remember his name.

He stared blankly at it, feeling the eyes of the alien stare back. "Uhm…" he murmured.  
He couldn't look at Bob right now, he just knew he was grinning from the comfort of that flying chair.

Frustration kicked in as he pondered the image. "Oh, it's on the tip of my tongue!"

Bob was smirking; Lance could hear the smugness in his voice. "Hurry on up, Lance. Star and creator of a famous stick-com? Special effects genius? Ring a bell?"

"Yeah, I know _who_ he is!" Lance cried. "I just don't know his name!"  
Of course, Lance remembered him from all the times Voltron had put on a show for the cause of the coalition. But it had been so many events that had all gone so fast that Lance had forgotten his name. It didn't help that he'd never had any idea what he was saying. He hadn't known this guy had a TV show, though. Good for him.

Lance gripped his hair and leaned over, hoping the blood rush to his head would refresh his brain. Desperately he whipped around to the others but only got blank, scared stares in response. Lance groaned. He would never get this one.

The ticking outside his isolation shield was growing faster. Norlox started calling out alien numbers in rapid succession. He was counting down.

Lance screamed. "No! I can get this! Uh, is it -- Me-something?"

He expected the buzzer that came after those words. Never before had he hated one sound so much.

All of his teammates collectively groaned or cried out in disbelief. Peeking he could see them slumped over their podiums. He turned angrily to Bob.

"I demand a rematch! That wasn't fair at all! First of all, you did that jerky thing where you switch the people last minute to throw me off, and then you give me the most difficult people! How do you expect anyone to be able to remember all those names?!"

Bob only chuckled, which drained Lance's self-esteem. He really wasn't intimidated at all.  
"Well, I'm very sorry, Lance, but that isn't how this game works," he said. There was no remorse in his voice. "As per the instructions of the game, you and your teammates will get fed to the Snick. Norlox, remind them what the Snick is."

Even Norlox looked sorry for them as he announced, "The Snick is a ferocious beast that feeds off the contestants who lose this game."

Lance watched as Bob turned back to him and the others. "Now, you will be given back your weapons we took. Sorry, we had to make sure you wouldn't escape."

Keith's voice was gravelly with anger when he grumbled, "If you did anything to our bayards-"

"Don't worry, Keith. We didn't do anything to your weapons,"  
Bob said with a wink. "You can trust us."

Lance looked back in time to catch Keith's death glare. Man, if looks could kill. He grinned slightly and turned back around again.

"But I guarantee your weapons will not help you here, my friends. The Snick is unbeatable. However, you're welcome to try. We'll set up a camera after a while to see how your skeletons look when the Snick is finished with ya." Bob finished.

Lance shivered at that. He'd already caught a glimpse of the Snick and did not fancy dying.

With that, Bob's hand flourished and a cord appeared in midair -- one of those light switch cords. He pulled it with a grin, waving his other hands. "Toodles!"

The floor disappeared from under Lance and he fell.

\--

The paladins ended up falling into a pile on top of one another, thankfully with Hunk on the bottom so injuries were minimized. Immediately a deep growl surrounded them, reverberating off the walls and making the dark environment into which they had fallen, shake. Where they were was no concern to them, as they all instinctively drew their bayards and looked around for the Snick. The dimmed lighting made it that much harder to make out where the monster might be.

Lance found himself backing up against Keith, but was glad for the reassurance of Keith's back hitting his own. It made him feel less alone.

"Where is it?" Hunk hissed, bringing him back to reality. "Do you guys see it?"

"We can't really see anything, Hunk," Pidge put in. She even had sass in near-death situations. Lance had to admire her for that.

It was then that Lance felt a drop of something hit his helmet. "Uhhh, guys?" he asked shakily, voice rising. "I think I know where the Snick is."

As everyone turned to him, he pointed slowly upwards. Their gazes followed his finger to a point above them and all of their eyes expanded.

"Oh, quiznak," Hunk muttered, right before the Snick made to flatten them, forcing them all to duck and tumble out from underneath its rump. Now they were screaming. Because they could.

\--

 

Lance dodged the Snick's swiping attack and rolled away. This was getting tiring and repetitive.

"We're never going to defeat it this way!" he yelled to the others. "We can't kill it!"

He looked up into the Snick's face again. His eyes widened.

"Wait. It's blind!" he announced.

"So?" Keith asked.

"So, it can't see us," Lance returned. He smiled, having had a lot of experience with blind animals in the past. All they needed was something to ground them, comfort them. The Snick was just confused and this was why it was aggressive.

_But how do you get close to a Snick?_

"Ok, guys, you distract it from one end," Lance called to the others. He carefully put away his Bayard. "I'll go around to another and try to pet it."

"This is a stupid plan, Lance," Keith replied. When Lance turned around and caught his gaze, all he saw was fear. "You could get killed. You could get us all killed."

Lance shook his head. "Trust me, ok? Just trust me. I know what I'm doing."

With that, he approached the Snick's side and reached up over its enormous, spider-like legs to get a hand on its furry body. While the others were occupied with its face Lance let his hand fall onto the downy surface.

The Snick froze. It didn't move, didn't attack, did nothing. Cautiously Lance started a gentle rubbing motion over its fur, covering as much of it as he could. This was always relaxing for the blind animals he'd dealt with in the past. It's nice to be grounded and kept calm when you have no idea what's going on.

For about thirty seconds the paladins stood perfectly still and so did Lance, who kept up the stroking motions as he began slowly to move around to its front. By the time he got to the Snick's face, where the others were standing watch, the Snick's breaths were coming long and relaxed.

"Hey, buddy," Lance whispered, looking into its blank white eyes. "How's it going?"

The Snick, of course, said nothing, but it turned its face to where Lance was standing as if it could feel his presence.

"Sorry we had to scare you like that. We're not gonna fight you, alright? You can rest."

With a giant movement, the Snick plopped down into a sitting position, its legs folded underneath it. Then, to everyone's surprise, it stuck out its tongue like a dog and started panting. Lance laughed, falling down into crossed legs in front of it.

"I knew you were a good boy!"  
He turned to the others with a grin. "Look, guys, it's like a dog!"

Keith was the first to approach it, a hand out in front of him. He let it coast along the length of the Snick's face and watched as the creature nuzzled into his touch. "Whoa." he breathed. "He's _fuzzy._ "  
In his mind, he saw Kosmo where the creature sat. He wondered where his dog was.

Lance grinned. It was odd to see Keith interacting like this with animals. He knew he loved Kosmo to death, but it was still surprising to him that Keith, such a closed-off and angsty guy, was like this sometimes.

After Keith, the other paladins rushed to the Snick. Hunk and Pidge immediately began to coo at it. It welcomed this new attention, most likely touch-starved. Lance stepped back to let it receive the pets it deserved, and sat down next to Keith on the cold floor.

Keith looked almost surprised when Lance sat by him. He didn't meet his gaze and crossed his arms.

"Hey," Lance said tentatively.

"Hey," Keith replied, eyes on the far wall in front of them.

Lance couldn't think of anything else to say after that, and he didn't have to, because at that moment the others joined him and Keith on the floor.

Hunk was grinning. "It fell asleep," he said. "And to think, we were gonna kill it."

"We should name it," Lance added. "I always used to name my pets, even the chickens, whenever we got new ones."

Keith sat up, arms uncrossing. "Chickens?"

"Yeah. My family used to have chickens, so we'd raise them and breed them and I used to name them. I can't remember them all now, but yeah."

Keith nodded. "Huh."

"I don't know, I kinda like calling it 'Snick'," Pidge put in. She looked back at the Snick, who was now breathing evenly and ruffling their hair with every exhale.

"I feel that if we name it, we may grow too attached to it," Allura added. Her gaze was hard. "When we escape, we cannot bring it with us."

There was silence. Everyone knew she was right. They didn't even know anything about Snicks -- what they ate, where they slept… It would truly be cruel to try and bring the Snick with them. Despite the fact that Bob probably always neglected it, this place was all it had ever known.

"Let's not name it then," Hunk sighed.

Bob's booming voice snapped them all out of their conversation and caused the Snick to begin growling. Lance's heart went out to it -- this was probably instinctual. He reached back and placed a protective hand on its warm belly.

Bob was probably expecting them all to be dead or worse, and so was his audience. Lance smirked. They'd sure get a surprise, alright.

The far wall fell away then, revealing the bright lights of the studio. The paladins watched as the camera panned around the audience, Norlox, and Bob. Everyone but Bob had fallen silent in disbelief at this point, only because Bob hadn't turned around yet and seen the paladins alive, nestled against the Snick's fur.

"Alright, who's ready to see how our brave paladins fared against the Snick?" Bob was saying, his hands flourishing. 

The audience didn't respond, and Bob paused. "What? What is it?" 

Norlox pointed a shaking hand at the screen, and Bob whirled around. When he spotted them he let out a very uncharacteristic scream. " _What?! What?!_ You're all supposed to be dead!"

Hunk, on Lance's other side, shrugged. "Sorry, Bob. Can't get rid of us that easily."

Bob's eyes expanded larger than Lance would have ever thought possible. He began to make all manner of weird noises, some that vaguely sounded like choking. 

The paladins exchanged looks. 

"You know what? That's fine." Bob said finally, taking a deep breath. 

Even Norlox was surprised. "Um, are you sure? This has never happened before."

Bob held his hands out in front of them and cracked his knuckles, nodding at the same time. "Yes, it's fine. I'll just have to get rid of the Snick and then kill those pesky paladins myself."

Immediately the paladins jumped to their feet. 

"No way are we letting you touch the Snick!" Lance countered. His bayard flashed into a sword in his hands. 

"And no way are we letting you kill us!" Hunk added. "The universe needs Voltron."

Bob shrugged. "You think I care? I could get rid of you all with a snap of my fingers." 

Instinctively Lance moved back until he felt the Snick's fur against his back. His eyes clouded over into a glare. "Go ahead and try, then."

There was a flash of light, and all five paladins were brought back into the studio, bayards in their hands. Immediately Lance looked around for the Snick, as did the other paladins. He was almost too afraid to ask the question because he already knew the answer. 

"What did you do with the Snick, Bob?" Allura demanded anyway. 

Bob chuckled in response. "Do you think I would tell you? Let's just get this over with, shall we?"

With a snap of his fingers, Bob made a glass screen appear between the audience and himself. As soon as he did Pidge rushed at him. Yelling, she threw her grappling hook at his chair and managed to pull it out from under him. Caught off guard, Bob fell to the floor. He growled and summoned another chair. "See, that was just annoying. If you guys are going to keep doing that, we won't have much of a fight, will we?" 

He snapped his fingers yet again and all the paladins' weapons disappeared from their grasps. They all cried out in outrage. 

"How are we supposed to fight you without our bayards?" Keith demanded. His voice was low and dangerous again.

Lance looked down at his hand, the realization coming to him all at once that they could very well die here. He'd never let it affect him before, but now, for some reason, it felt all too real. There were so many things he had yet to say -- maybe he hadn't had so many things to say at other times he'd been in near-death situations. His gaze stuck on Keith, standing in a fighting stance, so angry that there were lines in his forehead and a darkness under his eyes. He was trembling. Lance felt something soar in his heart for him, but he couldn't tell if it was a good or bad feeling. 

On instinct he rushed over to him and stood close to his side. His hand reached out, clasping Keith's unsuspecting, limp one. Keith turned to him with determination in his expression and tightened his grip on Lance's hand.  _We'll do this together._

They turned to Bob, feeling stronger, and as soon as they did, there was a bright flash of light. 

Then they all woke up. 

\--

"You guys won't believe what a crazy dream I just had," 

Hunk's voice was the first thing everyone else registered over the comms as they stirred. 

"Garfle warfle snick?" Pidge asked wearily. 

Lance's heart dropped to his shoes. Oh, no.

\--

 

 


End file.
